We have the early and the latter rains; the sixty days of hot corn weather are pretty sure to be measured out to us; the Indian summer, with its bland south winds and mitigated sunshine, brings all up, and about the 25th of November, being Thursday, a grateful people gather about the Thanksgiving board, with hearts full of gratitude for the blessings that have been vouchsafed to them." Poets love to sing of the sympathy of Nature.

I think she is decidedly at odds with the farming interests of the country.

At any rate, her antipathy to me was something intense and personal.

That mysterious stepmother of ours was really riled by my experiments and determined to circumvent every agricultural ambition.
She detailed a bug for every root, worms to build nests on every tree, others to devour every leaf, insects to attack every flower, drought or deluge to ruin the crops, grasshoppers to finish everything that was left.
Potato bugs swooped down on my fields by tens of thousands, and when somewhat thinned in ranks by my unceasing war, would be re-enforced from a neighbor's fields, once actually fording my lakelet to get to my precious potato patch.

The number and variety of devouring pests connected with each vegetable are alarming.